It’s not often that I get sentimental about pop culture related things and I’m not even going to claim to be there from the beginning. I got into Game of Thrones in January of 2016. I had resisted for a long time, primarily because I wanted to read the books first, but I had a wretched flu and was bedridden so I did what I usually do when I’m that sick and that is: bingewatch. I became obsessed. I always had a nose for high fantasy spending most of my weekends and school vacations with my nose buried in Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms books so when Thrones started taking off eight years ago I was skeptical as I am of anything popular but I thought I would give it a look.

Little did I know that after eight seasons I would be left feeling with a slight sense of anxiety as I know it’s time to say goodbye to something that has enraptured me for years and given me a rare lifeline to the popular culture lexicon. It hit me the other night that I had never been involved with any drastic show to the degree that I had this. And while I do dabble in various sorts of fandom, I don’t think any have hit me on this level, with the exception of Star Wars but that’s sort of my one overarching fandom.

I wonder, is this some sort of preemptive separation anxiety? I got what I’ve always wanted, to see well produced mass market fantasy based show that wasn’t based on anything Tolkein. I got something that was grisly, raw, not always pretty and sometimes downright wretched. From an objective standpoint, it’s really kind of odd to see that something so thick with violence, incest, rape, and war brought me so many emotions, mostly joyful, triumphant, and full of awe, but it is what it is. I also got the alien to me sensation of being swept up in the zeitgeist, I not only got to grow and live my life as this show progressed but I did it with the other watchers as well.

This weekend I’ll be going to a GoT party before I watch the final episode. I don’t know how I’ll feel after that, but something tells me I’ll be a little lost. It’s like when you finish a book you’ve been enamored with, you finish and you have this sort of book hangover where you miss looking forward to what the characters are going to do next, or even more ridiculous: you miss these completely fictional beings. But you’re always grateful for the ride.

At least I can hold out hope that George R. R. Martin will finish the other books before he croaks.